Ready or Not
by Mr.SammyShoeloser
Summary: Curing Dean was only the beginning and Sam thinks everything will be A-Okay once they rip that mark off his brother's arm; with Castiel's help it shouldn't be so hard. But what will he do when Crowley starts acting weird, Dean starts losing his mind, and Lucifer is once again set free? Will he be able to find strength, even among unlikely allies? "Ready or not Sammy, here I come!"


AN: So I'm not gonna bore you all with some long-winded Author's note or sob story about how I want you to be nice to me. I know I'm pretty terrible, and my grammar sucks ass, but frankly I don't give a damn. :D So yeah, nice to meet you all, my name's The-Voided Stiles, and this is my first fanfiction to be published pretty much anywhere. My main site for stories is , always has been, but I've now started posting to Wattpad and Archive of Our Own.

Disclaimer: No part of this fanfic may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without the permission of myself, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and PMs. I do not own any plot points, characters, or even monsters from the show Supernatural, nor do I make claims to any other noticeable fictional coincidences throughout the story. If you spot something you think I ripped off, it means I didn't know it already existed in a fic elsewhere and it just happens to be similar to whatever you're bitching about. No flagging, thanks, warnings are in place for a reason.

Speaking of which- WARNING: This fic was intended for individuals 18 and up, if you do not meet this criteria, you will be reading at your own risk, and the author will not and cannot be held responsible for any displeasure you may find written in the chapters to follow. Blood, graphic violence, swearing, sexual content, death, abuse, and general OOC crack are contained within, don't read if you don't like, got it? Great, now stop reading this shit and skip to the story already!

…::Chapter 1- Hunt::…

"Light the match, we don't have all day." The gruff order echoed in my ear, and I found myself hesitating for a moment as I looked down at the grave we dug and the rotted corpse that lay there. A howl of wind whipped through the murky night and dusted away the fog that had settled over the cemetery we stood in, forcing a shiver from my body when it stabbed through the layers of my clothes. It had to be done this way, there wasn't some different approach we could take to this, our lives, our jobs, so this is how it was done. You found a ghost? Great, salt and burn its ass. Oh, so you tracked down a Wendigo? Cool, set it on fire. Fire, burn, flames, heat, every hunt ended this way, why should I feel any different about it now?

But the words she'd said still ran around in my head, begging me, 'No please! Please… I can't go yet, please!' as rivers were carved down her pale, dead face. All it took was some rock salt and she was gone in a flicker of ghostly light, but she'd be back, dad said they always come back.

'Dad said so.' that had become my life, ever since mom died. It was a constant routine of obey every command, and protect Sammy, those rules were my purpose for life. However a sad life it maybe, only 11 and travelling around the country with an always half-drunk father, killing monsters, messing normal people up, stealing credit cards, the Family Business.

"Dean! I said hurry up!" The agitated tone of the man a few meters behind me by the car made me jump involuntarily. I rushed to pull the matchbox open and nearly dropped all the small sticks in my haste to grab one out. My hand was trembling around one of the small wooden cylinders once I'd finally managed to get one between my fingers without dropping it, and I struck it over and over against the red, sand papery side of the box until the sparks came to life as a bright light, breathing in the oxygen around it. I let the hot glow seep into my hands and face, and my eyes refused to leave the sight of the orange and yellow newborn for the better part of a minute. Who knew something so small and portable could give off so much heat? Could bring so much light to banish all the darkness surrounding it? I could feel my father's heated glare on my back overpowering the gentle warmth in front of my face, and I knew it was time to stop fooling around.

The scene could've played out in slow motion, a match falling in perfect minuscule flips down, down, down into the darkened earth below a hunter's feet. The flame making contact with the oiled corpse below and setting ablaze the night like a gate from hell had just opened up and poured forth its brightest hell fire, forcing my eyes to water.

That's what I always told my dad when I got back in the old 67 impala we drove around in anyway. That the sudden light from the fire just stung a little and that's why a single tear had silently rolled down my face. But sometimes I think he knew. He knew I was doing everything to hold back the tears I hadn't been allowed to set free since the minute I ran out that burning house, but he never said anything. John Winchester, the man that had forced me into this life, the man that had ripped my childhood away from me, never said a word. He just started up the car, turned the radio up and backed slowly out from the cemetery, leaving behind the flaming end to our latest hunt.

The only solace I could muster came with the saving grace of my brother. I knew I'd have to sneak away from the hotel room at some point tonight to call Sammy up for another comforting talk about how things were going for him, staying with Aunt Nell, one of mom's old friends. Somehow, the normal tales of school and homework always helped me sleep at night. Maybe it was just knowing he was safe, maybe it was knowing he had friends, and a bed of his own to go home to every night, or maybe it was just reassuring myself every day that he wasn't anywhere near a Hunter's life yet? Even I'm not sure, I just couldn't imagine him standing over some grave with me, doing what I do; burning lives.

I swore to myself that night, just like every night before, after I got off the phone with my little brother and snuck back in the hotel to sleep in that grungy, questionable bed, "Whatever happens, I won't ever let you get dragged into this Sammy… I won't let you be a hunter, I promise." And like every night, I fell asleep truly believing that.

…::+::...

"Would you hurry up already, Sam?!" The fact he bothered to use my name like that should have been enough to get my ass in gear, but after nearly ten years of him bossing me around, I've gotten pretty good at ignoring him.

My big brother Dean, a man who, at this point, really didn't need any introduction-at least not to every freaky monster, Angel, or Demon out and about in the messed-up world we lived in apart from the rest of humanity-Was the bitchy overlord of our bunkhouse half the time. And lately it had gotten even worse with the added violent mood swings he kept experiencing, but he wasn't worried about that, I was, the resident Angel in a Trench Coat was, Charlie was. But Dean wasn't, why would he be? We were hunters, _the_ hunters, the Winchesters who could crack down on anything sent our way the second it made a move.

Not that we ever wanted this life style to begin with, but it was definitely too late to go back now, no matter how hard we've tried, "Yeah, just a second!" I called back, making an odd face in the mirror as I grazed the razor down the side of my skin, scraping away the rest of the shaving cream there. I could hear an audible snort from outside the door, in my bedroom,

"Uh-huh, I believe that, seeing as you said the same thing ten minutes ago." I rolled my eyes at the dripping sarcasm he flung at me. Honestly, Dean was the definition of a drama queen, to the point where most days I just felt like tossing him back to Crowley and saying, 'Here! He's your problem again!' but I'd only risk something like that in my fantasies. With Dean the way he was now, with the Mark fueling the darkness still left over from his time as a demon, there was no way I was letting him alone. Even Cas had stated he wasn't letting Dean out of his sight.

I washed off the razor and rubbed on some aftershave, wiping at my jaw with a towel while opening the door. Immediately, I was faced with the startling image of my older brother standing with his back turned to me and starring at something I couldn't see across the room. His shoulders were tense and his jaw set, and it looked like his hands might be trembling, though they were balled into fists so tight I could've been wrong, "Dean?" I questioned quickly, watching him with increasing levels of puppy eyes. His head snapped around to match eyes with mine for a split second before he seemed to remember where he was and he made a show of trying to cover-up the fact he'd just been glaring at nothing,

"Huh, yeah? You finally ready to go princess?" I knew, just by the strain to his sarcasm that he was faking being okay, just like he always faked being okay. It was a vicious cycle he ran around with, we both did. We put ourselves through things that would have most people chained up in white jackets and then we try to brush it off like nothing ever happened, hiding away our feelings from each other until one of us got hurt.

"Uh, yeah… You okay?" I asked with a timid approach. The last time I had tried to get Dean to open up about what the Mark was doing to him, his eyes got this dark, down-right scary look to them, and I swear he nearly bit my head off.

"I'm fine." He retorted shortly, and once again I became frustrated with his lack of a 'chick-flick' moment. Don't let anyone ever say you can solve your problems by not feeling them, because honestly, that's crap. He left the room with that silent chip on his shoulder that said he was mentally going through a shit-storm and he didn't want to talk for at least the next 40 minutes, a.k.a the entire car ride to where ever we were going. I sighed and tossed the towel onto my bed as I passed it, grabbing my bag of stuff, usually laptop, box of bullets, holy water, all the other hunter's essentials on the way out the door to my room, and followed my scowling big brother to the stairs and out the exit of the bunker.

"So, Debby Bryant, age 34, living in Stephenville Texas reported her husband missing four days ago. Since his disappearance, there have also been six other missing reports. All of the incidences happened exactly five hours apart from each other, but oddly enough, nobody seemed to notice these people missing until four hours after they had all been abducted. Pretty weird, huh?" I read off from the glowing screen of the laptop sitting in front of me on the table of the dinner. The loud, often obnoxious, chewing and smacking coming from beside me let me know that Dean was thoroughly enjoying his lunch and probably hadn't heard a thing I said. But to my surprise, he sighed and dropped the burger in his hands back on his plate, scooting it, and the glass of beer away from him in a way that sent alarms buzzing through my mind, "Dean?"

"When do things ever not end up 'pretty weird'…?" He asked, or well, more like mumbled in response. But that's the thing that bothered me most, I wasn't even sure he was actually talking to me. His glazed green eyes brightened back up before I could get any more concerned and he smiled at me, "Anyway, sounds like a case to me. Finish up Sammy, I'll be waiting with Baby." He gruffly ordered as he stood up, straightening the black tie he wore around his neck. I pursed my lips in frustration after he was out of my line of sight, but I knew I couldn't linger long or he'd pull a 'dad' and start driving the car away on his own. I stood, shut my laptop, shoved it in my carrier, and got out my wallet. The lady behind the counter, who was washing a dish casually, simply smiled at me and I could only muster a half smile in return as I threw the money for the bill down and turned around, following Dean right out the door; my jaw clenched and my hand itching towards my pocket where my phone was. I needed to call Cas.

…::To Be Continued::…


End file.
